Half Blind, Half Stupid, All Awesome
by Hweianime
Summary: AU where Tony loses more than just a properly working heart. Twoshot?


Tony Stark has this thing.

It's not like, a _big_ thing. Not like he was secretly a demon or can sprout weapons out of the ground with just a will and a wish- despite what some two bit newspapers do imply. He doesn't actually have a harem. He's not planning to be a super villain and he certainly doesn't want to take over the world either.

But he totally could if he wanted to. Just saying.

Anyway, Tony Stark has this thing. It's not insignificantly small or anything. But it's not world-shatteringly huge either.

He's just kind of, a little, _blind_. Just a bit. In both eyes.

His sight is not completely gone. He can still pick up things, colors, outlines. Just not the details. The green smudge of foliage without the leaves, a dark blue coat without the buttons or collar, the grey-blue of his lab without the design. It's not completely gone. Sometimes he figures it might just as well be.

Afghanistan is the reason. It's the reason for many things. His heart. His eyes. His fear of water. Yinsen. His views. His weapons. And Iron Man.

While Tony would like to think that one day, even without Afghanistan, he could have become the man of Iron he is today, he knows deep down that to fix something as broken as he, you need to break a little more.

And in the end. It _is_ worth it.

Obviously he didn't think that before. It had been too soon, too close to the memories of shrapnel digging into flesh, the suffocating heat of the desert, the ice of water up his nose and finally the stinging frustration every time he forced his eyes to open.

He could have kept his sight if he had just rested his eyes. He knew that then and it haunts him now. Could have seen the clouds in the sky instead of just empty blue whenever he looked up, or seen the faces of a person instead of the blurred outline of their figures. But he pushed and he _pushed_ , with a battery instead of a heart and nothing but the designs and determination in his mind, he kept _pushing_ himself. Tony may have finally lost his eyes as he blasted out in his first suit of armor, fire licking at his skin as he tore his way out of his prison, but he had managed to regain his freedom, he had to see himself through.

At that moment that's what had mattered.

...

It didn't hurt any less when he couldn't take comfort in Rhodey's face when he finally arrived. He knew who it was, that voice, the tremors and the way he said Tony's name. But at the same time he just couldn't see it was Rhodey, he couldn't look at that face and think with a sense of finality, a sense of closure that he finally made it. That he finally did it.

There were more than a few nights he would wake from his bed, sweaty and twitchy and blind, throat dry like he swallowed sand and heart pumped full of shrapnel, and he would think that more than just a part of him was left in that desert.

...

When he was told that they couldn't fix his eyes. That it was some sort of brain thing that has ruined his visual perceptions so glasses were never going to be an actual quick fix. That it was as permanent as you got. Tony didn't cry. He didn't cry in Afghanistan and he sure as fuck wasn't going to do it in front of some doctor. No. He stood up, paid the man for his silence on the matter, left, and then figured out what to do next.

...

And if he broke two crappy chairs and drunk a smuggled bottle of something that smelt alcoholic and thankfully was, well, he wasn't going to be confessing that any time soon.

...

"You need to tell Pepper." Rhodey says, he's probably doing that frowny disapproval thing right now, not that Tony can see.

"I also need to sleep, eat and do other things in life, none of which I am doing now." He mutters, purposely not looking in his friend's direction.

"Dammit Tony!" The now half blind genius feels hands grip his shoulders and be shaken. Yeah, that's one way to demonstrate frustration at him. Not like he could see the patented _'I am so disappointed and angry but I'm mainly worried for you Tony'_ look Rhodes had perfected just for him. Pepper still does those better. Not that he'll be exposed to them ever agin, that he would be aware of anyway. "We're going to be leaving to the US _tomorrow_."

"I don't want to talk about this right now."

"You haven't been wanting to talk about this ever since the news, it's not exactly healthy."

"Yeah because I'm just the picture of health right now." Tony replies more than a touch bitterly as he makes a vague gesture toward himself. He starts visibly as a hand gripped his shoulder before scowling heavily at his reaction. "Not that I ever was, now it just shows more than ever."

"Tony," Rhodey's voice was soft and tight like a stretched wire ready to just snap in half, "You know that we love you buddy, don't do this to yourself."

When he didn't say anything in response, only looking down at his blanketed lap Rhodey sighed and left with promises to get some food. Once alone Tony grabbed the phone that the other had not so subtly left, stubbornly ignoring that little voice in his head that sounded suspiciously like Rhodey saying I told you so.

Tony just managed to unlock it before being unable to proceed any further, the numbers and words blurred to unreadable lengths.

He didn't try to pick it up again.

...

 _"Hello?"_ Tony couldn't help but smile at the familiar voice, it was completely worth the embarrassment (and vulnerability) of having to ask Rhodey to dial the number for him.

"Heya Pep."

 _"Tony? Oh my god, Tony! I've heard from Rhodey but he wasn't telling me anything and I didn't really believe it until you just, are you okay, you're coming back soon aren't you?"_ The audible relief, so clear in his head to visualize made the brunette chuckle. He's honestly never wanted to be in America more than right now.

"Yeah, I'll be back as soon as I can to hear your beautiful voice in person." Tony replied hoarsely. Jesus. He sounded like a wreck, he didn't even _want_ to look at what he looked like right now.

 _".. Is everything okay?"_ Damn Pepper and her unusual ability to pick up emotional cues. Actually most people would have probably been able to pick up the distress in his voice. Damn Pepper and her average ability to pick up emotional cues.

Telling her and listening to his strong, beautiful Pepper cry was worse than being told he's going to be half blind for life.

...

He declares Stark Industries will no longer manufacture weapons, admittedly Tony had no idea the shit that would result from that. He didn't plan the consequences. He didn't think about what this would mean. Tony just did.

The flashing lights hurt his eyes, the shouting of the demanding reporters buzzed angrily through his ears and the technological genius didn't need to see the expressions on a person's face to feel the shock that had resonated at his statement.

He never felt so free.

...

"JARVIS, why does it look like a rainbow on steroids vomited in my workshop?"

"I saw fit to brighten up the room sir." The AI replies, in a manner much too smug to sound properly apologetic. "I can always convert it back to its original look if you wish."

Tony looked at the workshop, everything, from the screws to Dummy was in some contrasting clashing color to the things around it. It was ugly. It was horrifying. It was enough to make anyone with a sense of the aesthetically pleasing want to cry. It was the first time in two weeks that he been able to walk down almost easily through his own sanctuary and discern between a screwdriver (dark blue) or a wrench (a disgustingly bright orange).

Tony's said this before, he's said this thousands of times, both in his mind and out loud.

He loves JARVIS.

"No, no. Leave it how it is. I've always said this place needed some colour anyway."

"Very good sir."

...

He takes to wearing sunglasses every where. The only evidence of scarring in the skin around his eyes is faint, weblike strands skittering around, framing his lightly glazed damaged pupils.

If Rhodey was still talking to him now, Tony was sure that his friend would have more than a few comments about his new tendency. He would say something insulting, Tony would retort with an equal amount of good humored scathing and they would laugh, making the whole situation lighter than it was. Pepper wouldn't join in, but she would get this exasperated fond smile at them as she handed over some files that needed signing, and scold him about the work she had to do because of Tony. He would whine and Rhodey would take Pep's side because of course he would, the traitor, and Tony would forget for a moment about the faint whir of the arc reactor inside him, or the blurry colors he can only see, because the scene would have been so familiar that he could recall perfectly the strands of red hair falling onto Pepper's face, the way Rhodey's mouth did that little crinkle upwards when he tried to hide a smile, his ability to look at a sheet of paper and be able to know what's on it without even asking like some idiot child.

But Rhodey wasn't talking to him. Not after the whole, 'refuse to make weapons' thing. It was understandable. Kind of. He's getting some huge shit from the army because Rhodey is Tony's friend and somehow that means Tony's decision is partly Rhodey's fault. It's not of course. This was all a hundred percent his decision to make, to stop, to do. Obie and the board are totally, painfully aware of that. The army apparently didn't get the memo.

So Tony does understand in an objective point of view why his friend is pissed. Just like he's sure on some level Rhodey will understand why he did this in the first place.

He takes what is possibly his sixth shot of whisky, and let's it burn down his throat before focusing back on the bright reds and gold plates of metal. The workshop is cold, garishly colored and near silent with the exception of the murmurs of machinery. It calms him and yet he wants more.

...

Few people knew about his thing. Well both things. His damaged heart and his, to a lesser extent, damaged eyes. Tony still feels a swell of inappropriate pride that the media hadn't somehow caught on the moment he arrived safely back in sweet American soil. Those red lipped, microphone holding, camera hovering reporters could smell weakness faster than sharks and bloody water.

Pepper knew. So did Happy. Obie too. And Rhodey. JARVIS obviously, plus Dummy, Butterfingers and You. Tony would count the doctor who diagnosed him but he's living very comfortably in Canada thanks to his finances at this moment and therefore has been officially been paid to not be part of the list.

So that made four people, one AI and three less complex AIs who knew about his thing.

Tony would say that was a rather sad list if he wasn't so surprised there was so many people on there on the first place. Which was probably rather sad as well.

When Obadiah betrayed him, literally took Tony's own heart and left him to die, he could safely say that the man was going to very strongly be crossed off the list.

That somehow hurt more than Afghanistan.

Fucking Afghanistan.

Fucking Obie.

Fuck.

…

Obie is dead.

The fight was all bright lights, explosions, cutting words and flying high.

And then Obie fell. Him and that giant, clunky armor of his, fell fast and hard into the exploding arc reactor. Electrocuted, surrounded by bright blue lights so even Tony could see the moment of his end. There was probably something poetic in all of that. Ironic.

Tony knew that he should be thinking something along the lines of 'Good riddance', or 'Fuck you Obie you backstabbing pig', or even a nice simple, 'I hope you died painfully.' No one would have faulted him from those thoughts. Obadiah Stane was the closest thing to a father figure he had, Tony grew up with him there, he was comforted by him and he had trusted him. And the man had stabbed him. In the back. In the heart. In the eyes. Again. And again. And. _Again._

He should hate Stane. Loathe and spit on his name. Do that thing where you pour shitty alcohol on his grave with vehemence and curses filled with poisoned words.

But all he could feel was the hollow ache in his chest where flesh was supposed to be, a burning in his eyes and grief that filled his lungs like hot oil as he thought, _'Why?'_

...

"I am Iron Man."

The press go wild. More hot flashes of white pop in his vision despite his glasses. He can practically feel the annoyance rolling off Agent and Pepper. Tony smirks. He's still got it.

...

After everything that had happened, Tony resolved never to be so vulnerable again. So weak. So blind.

He threw himself into learning Braille, because despite the contrast between black and white, the thin font styles blurred into nothing but a white or slightly greyish paper. Then he threw himself into designing a Stark pad and various other mobile devices that can translate languages into braille, because apparently braille is a language mainly used exclusively for lifts and not for playboy genius philanthropists like him.

The new Starkpad design was sold for the visually disabled in mind as well as more effective hearing aids. These and any future products are sold with various coloring options. Adding promises for more technology based on helping with those impaired such as prosthetics and versatile tablets, resulted in good PR and SI stocks finally re-stabilizing enough that the board wasn't considering jumping out of a window if not outright mutiny. Again.

Between Ironman and finding ways to get over having next to no sight, Tony finds a strange balance in his life. It could almost be considered fulfilling. He has Pepper, and Rhodey, Happy, and JARVIS for company. He created some extremely awesome echolocation specs which are integrated in not only his Ironman suit but in twenty custom made sunglasses and may have made so many batman references whilst wearing them, Rhodes threatened to replace half his beautiful collection of alcohol with water and juice.

Rhodey is a monster.

He has JARVIS constantly with him too now, JARVIS is in his ears thanks to well hidden aids, interpreting people's faces for him and whispering what Tony's supposed to be reading when he can't whip out his special braille Starkpad in public. He's always had JARVIS with him most of the time, but now they're practically inseparable. Tony feels that he should feel more indignant about needing to be so dependent on something to function, he is, but it was JARVIS, and admittedly it didn't feel as unwelcome as he had thought having the snarky voice of his AI in his ear. It was nice actually.

Tony admits this once. He was hammered, alone in his bedroom with just the night sky and the remnants of his lingering dreams of cold water with shriveling hot sand in his mouth when he confesses this to his AI. Tony doesn't remember what he said. He doesn't really want to. JARVIS was silent throughout the whole thing, he recalled that at least. And if from the next day on, JARV had taken to talking in his earpiece in a way only sentient artificial intelligence that has no need to breathe could, well, no one was complaining. Much.

Okay they were complaining a little bit. A lot actually. Because JARVIS was an omniscient sassy being that liked to gossip about interesting things in Tony's ear which makes Tony come off as the omniscient sassy being who knows exactly who's sleeping with who, the people who are eating the last bagel, that one really annoying guy who puts gum under _everything_ and all that drama, and everyone as a result becomes hilariously paranoid as hell.

...

There's nightmares. Of course there's nightmares. He's had them before. Ones where he's plagued by the guilts that came from being a death merchant, ones where he's falling, ones where- and he visibly shudders at his twisted mind- he wears plaid. In. Public.

Now he gets different ones. Filled with acrid smoke and sand. Cold water and rough hands pushing him down, hurting him. He never dreams of faces in these ones. Everything is so vivid except the faces. They are blurred out so bad that it might as well have been done with the worst facial blurring app in the world. Or the best.

But in the end he prefers those than the dreams, nightmares, where he can only see faces. Where everything is like a really bad water painting gallery except for everyone's faces which are always in amazing high definition quality. It's usually a normal day in those dreams, days before everything was broken, jagged and hazy. But his eyes are damaged in the dreams. Like he always had these eyes like a birth defect. Tony can't tell how but when he dreams he just knows it to be. No one knows that he can still see their faces, expressions, only him.

Pepper would walk up to him, her pretty features wary and untrusting as she approaches him. Dream-Tony acts like how he would normally, he's not in control, if he was he'd be screaming, or you know, awake. When he cracks a joke Pepper laughs, it sounds genuine, her usual little huffing of amusement but her face is different. She looks forced, uncomfortable, even disgusted with him. Rhodey would come in next, angry, sneering and callous as he greets Tony like the best friend he's supposed to play. More people would come next, they varied, his mother grimacing in revulsion, his father seething with bitter hatred and longing as he looked somewhere beyond where Tony stood, teachers he liked, friends he had, lovers.

But they would always end with Obie. Always with his death, blue lights flashing as his body jerks like a ragged doll being played by a particularly cruel child. His face though is always cruel and mocking. Like he knows everything he's done to Tony, every insecurity and issue he's managed to dig up from his psyche and gleefully played with, every rotting dark thought that he's suffered because of him, and yet he will be smiling like he regrets none of it. That Obie would do it all again, ten times over if it would get him even half the money he had planned to earn from it all.

It's confusing and terrifying and above all it hurts in a way he usually doesn't allow himself to hurt. Everything sounds alright, friendly, joking, kind, warm, home. But their faces, everyone's faces, it's the opposite, faked, cruel, mocking, hard. These were the dreams that made him question everything, he'd always be paranoid about trusting people with few exceptions. Now he can't even trust those exceptions. Not anymore. Not as much.

And when he wakes, he's sweating and his chest aches with every beat of his heart and sharp breath that he breathes. He doesn't tell anyone about his dreams, the way he doubts even the closest friends he's ever had despite everything they've gone through now, everything they've managed to push through, together. He doesn't tell anyone about the dreams. Or how sometimes he still feels like he's still dreaming them.

...

But despite it all, Tony was actually getting better. Better mentally. Better person. He still kinda sucks on the physical front but he works out and wears heavy-ass armor for his superhero hobby so that has to count for something. Yes. Everything wasn't going fine per say, after all happy endings don't just ever happen to half blind ex-death merchants with artificial hearts, but it was getting better.

...

And then obviously he finds out he's dying.

Because fuck him unkindly that's why.

...

It's palladium poisoning that's going to do him in. From his _arc reactor._ Tony has survived Afghanistan, the Ten Rings, losing his heart twice and Obie. And now he's dying from the one single thing keeping him alive. As someone who lives to find the ultimate example of irony you could just imagine how fucking ecstatic he was to that realization.

...

But life moves on. And so does he.

He makes Pepper CEO, hires one Natalie Rushman to replace her (though no one can truly replace her, really, it's just until he's gone, Pep will understand, she'll scream at his dead body and probably taint it by slapping paperwork on it in grief stricken fury, but she'll understand), he competes in the Monaco Historic Grand Prix because, _awesome,_ and is then subsequently attacked by some electric whip master, which was a bit less awesome.

Electric whip man apparently did it to declare to the world Ironman wasn't invincible, and can Tony be the one to just say- duh? He may be a genius and amazing and, _a freaking genius_ , but obviously Ironman isn't invincible. It would be nice if it were. It would. But it really isn't.

There's some other stuff with politics and his armor and Justin Hammer (ugh) in between all that, but that's probably not important.

...

Tony parties. Tony parties hard like its his last party on earth. In his defense, it kinda was.

The lights are flashy and ever changing, the people are just as flashy and colorful, with shiny accessories adding another factor to the whole visual experience, with good music (okay more like 'not terrible' music) and strong booze in which Tony can finally forget himself and just immerse in the stimuli.

It's kind of ruined when Rhodey dons _his_ Mark ll suit and fights him whilst he's trying to waste his life away inside his current Mark lV. Tony may have been severely inebriated but he knows his suits in a way his friend can't with just army combat training alone, still, the fight ends in a stalemate and it's really Tony's loss since Rhodey stole Mark ll. Or is it Tony's win?

Give his best bud the Ironman armor? Check. See Pepper, he can do hard things he doesn't want to do if he puts his mind to it.

...

Natalie Rushman turns out to be a SHIELD agent. Tony really wishes he could say he could've seen this coming.

Fool him once. Shame on you. Fool him twice? Serious shaming on his behalf. And JARVIS's. Actually lets all just shame JARVIS.

Bad, baaad JARVIS.

Tony wishes she broke that can of worms in a nicer manner than she did at the very least. Like come _on_ , an invitation for coffee, sitting down like civilized human beings, a bit of small talk to build it all up before slipping in between, 'What a fascinating innovating idea Mr. Stark,' and, 'Did I mention you look so sexy in red and gold titanium alloy Mr Stark?', with just a simple, 'By the way I'm an agent of SHIELD that's been sent to spy on you.'

And Tony with as much dignity as he currently had would have been all, 'Well Ms Rushman if that's even your name, I am very hurt by your deception but thanks to recent events I have apparently grown as a person and thus has found myself having the capacity to forgive your lying face. Nonetheless you are obviously so, so fired.' Then he would have sipped his delicious very expensive espresso, paid the bill with a nice generous tip because he was a gentleman in that aspect, and left on his merry way.

As one can assume, that did not happen.

"Fuck you secret agents and all your secret secrets and your not so secret, secret need for secrecy." Tony scowls as he rubs where the needle penetrated his skin, courtesy of said secret agents. He's just been explained that apparently these bastards had a chest of dear old dad's crap that could possibly (hopefully) be used to find a cure for his little tiny issue of him dying from the inside out.

...

In the end there is no gold key that unlocks some old clockwork device that conveniently gives him a new and improved heart, there's no secret code that will lead on a journey filled with self-discovery and treasure. It's an old film reel of his dad that finally brings some light to the problem.

 _"My greatest creation- is you."_

It's probably the nicest thing his dad has ever said to Tony and Tony still thinks the man is a complete dick.

...

"If you try to escape, or play any sort of games with me, I will taze you and watch 'Supernanny' while you drool into the carpet."

Agent Coulson was sent to guard him as he searched, it was the lesser of the two evils really. Tony would actually just die if he had to be babysat by Nat-liar-something not-Rushman. It's not an exaggeration, he would totally just keel over and die just to prove his point. Okay maybe it's a slight exaggeration. Still, that did not mean he was happy with the idea of being babysat in the first place. Especially under threat of being tasered.

He made it very clear about his opinions as he passively aggressively used the prototype Captain America's shield he had found to help balance his particle accelerator. Honestly Tony almost felt bad, more accurately he felt like he used the man's first born baby child who was half puppy instead of a rejected Captain America novelty, if that sudden stricken look on Coulson's face was anything to go by. But since it wasn't actually a sentient being he was squishing under his admittedly garishly contrasting mismatch of colored metals, it was way more funny than heartbreaking.

Though maybe the next time Tony meets Coulson he'll give him some of his old collection of limited edition Captain America cards he does not own, just because he can. It is not guilt. He does not feel guilt. It's because Tony wants to subtly laugh in the SHIELD agent's face about having better Cap memorabilia than him. Because Tony is a jackass and kind of weirdly proud of that.

...

So in the end there's this brand spanking new element he creates and stabilizes (which he is so going to add to his resume, in big sparkly lipstick-y red writing) and Tony is running on much cleaner energy. Hammer, like the tool (hah get it?) he is, decides on the same day to unleash his dumb drones into the world. And a supped up Rhodey. Except the idiot couldn't even do _that_ right because turns out, _oops,_ electric BDSM over there took complete control over both the drones and Rhode's new armor.

It gets kind of complicated after that. And messy. And there may have been a brief awkward moment where Tony mistakes Pepper for the redheaded Spy Who Lies but since he didn't voice that potential train wreck out loud it wasn't that bad. Because Pepper would fucking tear up and look so sad and be all 'Oh Tony,' if that happened he just knew it. He did not need that kind of emotional crap when he fights killer drones.

But at the end of the day Tony pulls through like he always manages to do. Hot lying SHIELD spy Nat R (the only parts of her name that wasn't a big scam and no, Tony was not going to let this go that easily) who he is now totally going to call Natter because that's just _gold_ , manages to free Rhodey from being a frankly weird robot sex slave puppet which Rhode's totally denies which is cool because Tony wouldn't like to admit if he had been a robot sex slave either.

What's he talking about? Ironman is a sexy piece of work, anyone would be lucky to have him as a robotic love doll and Tony will shout that out loud to anyone who may possibly care to hear it.

Anyway they make up and fight alongside each other like the bros they are, beating both the electric whipman and Hammer's asses and saving Pepper like the shining not-so-white knights they are in the midst of what he imagines is well timed Michael Bay explosions in the background. It was all very impressive.

….

What was less impressive was explaining that the reason he was being such a gigantic douche was because he had been maybe, possibly, certainly reaching a point where he could be considered not living per say. Pepper was pissed. Rhodey was too but he couldn't really talk because he stole robot armor from a _dying_ man. Pepper was pissed about that too.

It's okay. They'll get over it. They always do.


End file.
